Category Archives: World News

Stock market correction of 5%-10% ‘likely before year end’; US inflation expectations rise – as it happened

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Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Earlier:

Time to wrap up....

Here’s today’s main stories:

Related: Alibaba shares plunge as Beijing ‘seeks to break up Ant’s Alipay’

Related: Stock market pullback likely by year end, Deutsche Bank survey finds

Related: Evergrande investors face 75% hit as company edges closer to restructure

Related: UK cancels Covid vaccine deal with French firm Valneva

Related: Higher taxes could leave low-paid frontline workers £1,000 worse off

Related: EU Brexit controls are pointless bureaucracy, says M&S chairman

Related: Brexit trade barriers added £600m in costs to UK importers this year

Related: Primark hit by ‘pingdemic’ but it says supply crisis won’t lead to shortages

Related: West End theatres bank on staging a revival with big-budget productions

Related: All Sainsbury’s stores to stay shut on Boxing Day as a ‘thank you’ to staff

Related: UK to offer £265m in subsidies for renewable energy developers

European stock markets have shrugged off growth fears and talk of a stock market pullback, to end the day higher.

In London, the FTSE 100 gained 39 points or 0.55% to end at 7068 points. Royal Mail (+3%), Lloyds Banking Group (+2.8%), and hedge fund management group Pershing Square (+2.6%) led the risers.

Spain's Ibex up 1.3%. German Dax up 0.6%
The major European indices are ending the day with gains across the board:

German DAX, +0.56%
France's CAC, +0.2%
UK's FTSE 100, +0.55%
Spain's Ibex, +1.3%
Italy's FTSE MIB, +0.9%
In other markets as European/London traders look to exit:

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Far-right journalist quits French TV show amid election rumours

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Éric Zemmour is about to begin a book tour, but has not yet announced his candidacy for president

The French far-right journalist and commentator Éric Zemmour has stepped down from his nightly TV show, heightening speculation that he could make an outsider bid to run in next year’s French presidential election.

The 63-year-old, who was a political journalist for Le Figaro, holds convictions for inciting hatred and is best known for his TV diatribes against immigration and Islam.

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Emma Raducanu’s Chinese heritage praised by China’s state media

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News outlet points out that US Open champion once attributed her winning confidence to ‘Chinese style of inner faith’

Chinese state media has said the “Chinese style of inner faith” gave British player Emma Raducanu the confidence to win the US Open over the weekend, but some of the country’s internet users asked: why are we calling her Chinese?

Raducanu, 18, became the youngest grand slam winner since Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004. The pride in her success was simultaneously shared in China, where her mother was born.

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Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds

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Production of meat worldwide emits 28 times as much as growing plants, and most crops are raised to feed animals bound for slaughter

The global production of food is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods, a major new study has found.

The entire system of food production, such as the use of farming machinery, spraying of fertilizer and transportation of products, causes 17.3bn metric tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, according to the research. This enormous release of gases that fuel the climate crisis is more than double the entire emissions of the US and represents 35% of all global emissions, researchers said.

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Taliban assure UN over safety and security of humanitarian workers

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Written assurances also say aid agencies will be able to operate independently of government and will be free to employ women

The Taliban have given the UN written assurances on the safe passage and freedom of movement for humanitarian workers operating in Afghanistan, the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, has told a UN fundraising conference in Geneva.

Reading extracts from the Taliban undertakings, Griffiths said he had also received the assurances that aid agencies would be able to operate independently of the government, and would be free to employ women.

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New York court to hold pre-trial conference on civil suit filed against Prince Andrew

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Attorneys for Virginia Giuffre expected to argue royal has been properly served with documents in alleged sexual assault case

A New York court is to hold a pre-trial conference on Monday on the civil suit filed against the Duke of York in the sex assault case against him, with reports suggesting his lawyers will not attend the hearing,

Attorneys for Virginia Roberts Giuffre, 38, who alleges Prince Andrew, 61, sexually assaulted her when she was 17, a charge he vehemently denies, are expected to argue that the royal has been properly served with documents in the case.

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Spain wildfire: almost 1,000 emergency workers fighting blaze

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Fire in Andalucía region rages for sixth day having already forced evacuation of thousands of people

Almost 1,000 firefighters and emergency workers are battling one of the most intractable Spanish wildfires in recent years as the blaze rages for a sixth day, after devouring at least 7,400 hectares (18,285 acres) of land in the southern region of Andalucía and forcing the evacuation of more than 2,600 people.

On Sunday, 260 members of Spain’s military emergencies unit were deployed to help tackle the fire, which began last Wednesday in the mountainous Sierra Bermeja above the resort town of Estepona, and which now has a perimeter of 53 miles (85km). Experts hope the rain forecast across much of the country on Monday will help extinguish the blaze.

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‘China’s Dr Fauci’: How Zhang Wenhong became the face of Beijing’s Covid battle

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Expert’s clever analogies and frank messages to public have won him respect – and millions of followers

Early last year, as Covid-19 began to disrupt livelihoods in Shanghai, local media struggled to persuade the public to stay at home. Then they turned to an infectious diseases expert, Dr Zhang Wenhong, who also heads up Shanghai’s expert panel on Covid-19.

“You’re bored to death at home, so the virus will be bored to death, too,” Zhang said in rapid-fire mandarin mixed with a distinctive Shanghainese accent. “Stay at home for two weeks … then we’ll be an inch closer to success.”

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The battle for Mekelle: Ethiopia’s civil war over Tigray goes on – in pictures

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An estimated 2.2 million people have been forced from their homes and thousands have been killed in the civil war that broke out in Ethiopia last November when government troops entered Mekelle, capital of the Tigray region. Witnessed by photographer Sergio Ramazzotti, the city was retaken by the Tigray Defence Forces in June, but peace in the region seems a long way off

  • All photographs by Sergio Ramazzotti/Parallelozero

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‘A very cruel exit’: UK’s aid cuts risk rapid return of treatable diseases

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£200m project to eliminate avoidable blindness and disfigurement in Africa ends after funding is prematurely axed

A chandelier sparkling in the background, the grandeur of Downing Street gleaming behind him, Boris Johnson looks into the camera and speaks with solemnity. He is marking World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day, he says, to raise awareness of these “terrible afflictions … which impose an immense burden of suffering in developing countries”.

Huge progress has been made, he says, in the fight against the diseases, not least as a result of British aid to some of the poorest parts of the world. But there is more – much more – to be done: more than a billion people are still at risk, he warns, and that is why the UK “fully supports” the World Health Organization’s big elimination push over the next decade.

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Wildfire in south of Spain forces thousands to flee their homes – video

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People have been forced to flee their homes across many Andalucían towns and villages as fire crews in Spain worked to contain wildfire blazes. A military unit has been sent in to help tackle the fires raging close to a Costa del Sol resort. Evacuees, some elderly, took shelter in a sports centre in the nearby town of Ronda, as volunteers brought in bottled water and supplies. Regional environment chief Carmen Crespo said the blaze appeared to have been started deliberately and investigators were working to uncover more details.

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Coronavirus live news: Italy sends 100,000 vaccines to Iraq; England to scrap Covid vaccine passport plans

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Latest updates: follow all our coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic from the UK and around the world

Conservative MPs fear vaccine passports could still be made mandatory later this year amid a warning the NHS faces “the worst winter in living memory”, despite the health secretary’s announcement earlier today that they are to be scrapped.

The dramatic U-turn came just weeks after Boris Johnson announced the controversial documents would be necessary for fully vaccinated people to go to nightclubs and other crowded venues.

They shouldn’t be kept in reserve – they are pointless, damaging and discriminatory.

“The very concept of vaccine passports needs to be ruled out for good, as they are fundamentally unconservative, discriminatory and would lead to a two-tier society that I am confident no one actually wants to see.

“I don’t believe that, sadly it’s probably politics.

Related: Some Tories fear second U-turn over plan for Covid vaccine passports in England

South Africa’s president has announced an easing of Covid-19 restrictions and a shortening of the national curfew after a decline in infections.

Authorities will also extend the hours of alcohol sales, further relaxing restrictions introduced in June to combat a third wave of cases caused by the Delta variant, Reuters reports.

While the third wave is not yet over, we have seen a sustained decline in infections across the country over the last few weeks.

With the decline of infections across all provinces, the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19 has recommended an easing of restrictions.

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Republican backlash against Biden’s Covid vaccine mandate grows

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Asa Hutchinson calls directive ‘unprecedented assumption of federal mandate authority’ as other governors threaten to sue

The political sparring match over Joe Biden’s new vaccine mandate continued on Sunday with one Republican governor blasting the measure as “counterproductive” and the White House insisting it was necessary to end the coronavirus pandemic.

Related: Northern Idaho’s anti-government streak hinders fight against Covid

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Pope urges Hungary to ‘extend its arms to everyone’ in veiled Orbán critique

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Pontiff’s statement at start of four-day central Europe tour at odds with far-right PM’s anti-migrant stance

Pope Francis has urged Hungary to “extend its arms towards everyone” in an apparent veiled critique of Viktor Orbán’s anti-migrant policies, as the pontiff began a four-day visit to central Europe in his first big international outing since undergoing intestinal surgery in July.

Francis, 84, appeared in good form during his visit to Budapest, presiding over a lengthy mass and standing as he waved to crowds from his open-sided popemobile. He used a golf cart to avoid walking long distances indoors and confessed at one point that he had to sit because “I’m not 15 any more”. But otherwise he kept up the typical gruelling pace of a papal trip.

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The Guardian view on Xi Jinping’s China: rectification, not revolution | Editorial

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A wide-ranging crackdown and leftist rhetoric have stirred fears of a return to the apogee of Maoism

Fifty-five years ago, China was in turmoil. Mao had launched the Cultural Revolution to eradicate opposition in the party and cleanse the country’s political soul, using the power of the masses. It would last a decade and claim well over a million lives; 36 million people were hounded, including Xi Jinping’s father, who had previously been a senior leader. The current president was himself denounced and spent years living in bleak rural poverty.

Unsurprisingly, Mr Xi has spoken scathingly of the Cultural Revolution in the past. Yet many now see growing echoes of the era. The Communist elders who survived the disaster sought to cage the power of the leader through consensus and new conventions. Under those, Mr Xi would be expected to step down as general secretary of the party – the role that gives him real power – next autumn, after 10 years. But putative successors have been sidelined or ousted, and dismantling term limits for the presidency, his other position, was a clear sign he plans to continue. The overt hostility to foreign influences is growing. A personality cult is flourishing; new textbooks on Xi Jinping Thought tell young schoolchildren that “Grandpa Xi Jinping has always cared for us … ”

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Work begins on wrapping Arc de Triomphe for Christo artwork

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Operation combining art and engineering on a massive scale fulfils dream of late artist couple

Shortly after the sun rose over central Paris, the first of the orange-clad rope technicians hopped over the top of the Arc de Triomphe and began to abseil down the landmark unrolling a swathe of silvery blue fabric that shimmered in the early light.

Someone clapped as the first abseiler went over the top – 50 metres from the ground – but most in the crowd of onlookers just held their breath. It was a slow and meticulous operation, requiring them to stop make adjustments to the folds in the material every few metres while avoiding touching the arch itself.

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Spanish wildfires drive thousands from homes close to Costa del Sol

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Firefighters battle to contain blazes in Andalucía as Spain drafts in military to help

People have fled their homes in six more Andalucían towns and villages as Spain sent in a military unit to help tackle wildfires raging close to a Costa del Sol resort.

A blaze fanned by strong winds has driven out almost 2,000 people and killed one emergency worker since it began on Wednesday in the mountainous Sierra Bermeja above Estepona, a popular spot with British tourists and retirees.

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Italy investigates alleged abduction of boy who survived cable car crash

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Six year-old Eitan Biran, who is at centre of custody battle, reportedly taken to Israel by grandfather

Italian prosecutors have launched an investigation after a six-year-old boy who was the only person to survive a cable car crash in Italy in May was taken by his grandfather to Israel, against the wishes of other members of his family amid a bitter custody battle.

Eitan Biran, whose parents and two-year-old brother died in the Stresa-Mottarone aerial tramway crash on 23 May, has been at the centre of a custody battle between relatives in Italy and Israel.

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Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo to run for French presidency

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Socialist to campaign on her story of ‘overcoming class prejudice’ in bid to win back voters for the left in 2022

The Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has announced a bid for the French presidency, saying that as a woman with working-class, immigrant roots she will try to repair the anger and divisions in French society and win back low-income workers disillusioned with the left.

“The Republican model is disintegrating before our eyes,” Hidalgo told supporters gathered on the docks in Rouen, Normandy. She warned of growing inequalities, saying: “I want all children in France to have the same opportunities I had.”

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Afghan women at university must study in female-only classrooms, Taliban say

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Islamic dress code will be compulsory as new regime enforces gender segregation in Afghanistan

The Taliban have announced that women in Afghanistan will only be allowed to study at university in gender-segregated classrooms and Islamic dress will be compulsory, stoking fears that a gender apartheid will be imposed on the country under the new regime.

On Saturday, the Taliban raised their flag over the presidential palace on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, signalling that their work governing the newly formed Islamic emirate had begun. The white banner bearing a Qur’anic verse was hoisted by Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the prime minister of the interim Taliban government.

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